A typical airplane includes wings having control surfaces, such as flaps. For example, a wing includes a flap that is moveably connected to a main body. A moveable droop panel is connected to the flap and the main body.
A droop (or drooping) panel is operable to provide increased camber to a wing as a flap is deployed. The camber of the wing (that is, an airfoil) relates to a thickness of the wing. In general, the camber determines an amount of lift that a wing generates as air flows around the wing. An increased camber generates increased lift. As such, droop panels are typically deployed during take-off and landing of an airplane.
The droop panel typically does not require a high rate of activation, or spoiling (that is, upward motion) capability. That is, the droop panel generally only needs to downwardly move below a plane of an upper surface of a wing to increase camber of the wing in front of the flap.
One type of droop panel is directly coupled to a dedicated droop actuator, such as a motor, that is used to move the droop panel. As can be appreciated, the droop actuator occupies space within a wing assembly, and adds weight to the airplane.
Further, a known droop panel may be connected to a flap through a plurality of pinned connections. However, the plurality of pinned connections may cause deviations in desired positional relationships between the flap and the droop panel. In short, a desired positional relationship may be difficult to control due to the various pinned connections.